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face. Seeing her body like that brought a wave of grief that was physically painful. It was as if I’d been punched in the gut. I felt sickened. The ship’s arm slid away into the side room, the one with all the tables and smaller snake-arms. I didn’t look. I didn’t want to see what was going on in there with Sandra. I didn’t want to see her beautiful body being dissected.
    I put my hands on my knees and almost heaved up whatever was in my stomach. I had to struggle to keep control. The huge arm dipped down again. I took several steps, crossing the room and leaning against the cold wall of the bridge, which I now believed this room to be. The arm was down there, snaking around my farm. Soon, it would come back up with Jake’s body, I knew. I didn’t want to see him as a dead thing. Not again.
    It was very quiet down there. The initial gush of smoke and heat had ebbed, leaving a lurid flickering light. Something was on fire. I hoped it wasn’t my house. I hoped it wasn’t Dave Mitters. Soon the arm did as I thought it would, gliding back into the ship with a burden. It slipped into the medical bay, or dissection room, or whatever it was, and vanished. I put my cheek against the cold wall of the ship and tried not to think of Jake or Kristine or Dave Mitters. I tried not to think of anything.
    I failed to stop my mind from racing, however. What if the ship revived the kids, but as brain-damaged vegetables? Would I have to watch them grow up in a coma? Or, what if the ship never let any of us go? What if we were to be its prisoners, perhaps to be tested by pitting us in death fights on other worlds?
    What if I had only magnified the horror of the situation by bringing my own children back into it?

-5-

    “Retrieval process complete.”
    “You—you are ready for new instructions?” I asked hesitantly.
    “Ready,” said the ship.
    I looked around with wide eyes. That voice never seemed to emanate from any one spot. I’d never seen a speaker. The sound came from the very walls of the ship itself, I thought. If the ship could change its walls into doors at will, then maybe it could make tiny motions in a spot on the walls, forming a vibration. Forming a speaker and pronouncing words. Very strange technology.
    I reflected that if I was allowed to give the ship a new order, then this test was either much longer and more complex than any of the others, or it was not a test at all. Perhaps, I had truly been given command of this ship. But why?
    I decided, at long last, to ask some questions. There was one I had to ask.
    “I command you to answer my questions. How are the revivals going? Are my children going to survive?”
    “Unknown. The injections have been administered.”
    I thought about that. What injections? I decided the ship’s answer was good enough for now. I would find out the rest when the job was done. The fact the ship had said unknown concerned me, however. The outcome was in doubt. I shook my head and rubbed my temples.
    “Ship—what should I call you?”
    “How do you wish to address us?”
    I thought of a dozen expletives. Asshole came to mind, for example. For the first time since I’d awakened, a grim smile twitched on my face and quickly died.
    “I’m going to name you Alamo ,” I said, “because I intend to never forget you.”
    “Rename complete.”
    I snorted. “Okay Alamo, let’s try something easy. Turn on a view screen or something so I can see what’s going on below us.”
    A portal melted in the middle of the bridge floor. It was circular and perhaps ten feet in diameter. The second it began to open, the air in the room began screaming out of it. A fantastic wave of cold struck me. Could we be in space? Had I just killed myself?
    “Close it! Close it up again!” My breath came in gasps. I was on the floor and being sucked across it toward the opening.
    The hole vanished and the room rapidly repressurized. How high up were we? I didn’t think I was in open space, as I was